Falling For Forever Was A Big Mistake
by 2q21
Summary: Fifteen minutes in the same proximity as him, and it makes her question the last two weeks she had spent convincing herself that she made the right decision. One-Shot


**AN: **This has legitimately been in the works since August. Thanks to Spousey and Marcela, who both in their own ways encouraged me to finish whatever this is for the last 6 months.

I also listen to way too much country music, which also inspired this.

* * *

It's the second Friday of the month, so she's in the parking lot of the public library, like she always is.

He's ten minutes late. She glances in the rear view mirror of her SUV and watches as Beth and Jonah impatiently staring out the windows.

"Where is he, Mommy?" Beth asks, eyes fixated on the small side road next to the building.

Before Quinn can open her mouth to answer, the unmistakable noise that is Puck's double cab pickup truck whips in beside the SUV.

Jonah squeals with laughter from his car seat when his father sticks his tongue out at the little boy through the window.

She avoids his gaze as they help their children out of the back seat. Both kids immediately jump on their father.

She misses this. She misses it more than she'd like to admit. It's just more evident when he's here with their two children; not that it's not evident when she needs the yard mowed… her oil changed…or a pickle jar opened. She just misses the family aspect.

She'd thought she'd stopped lying to herself around eighteen, but apparently, old habits die hard.

Fine, so she misses _him_.

* * *

He's been held up at the garage with a customer, so he's running a few minutes late. He knows he'll hear about it from Beth later - she is her mother's daughter, after all.

He quickly scrambles to fill several McDonald's bags full of Mountain Dew cans and Pay Day wrappers and pushes them out of the way before Quinn can see. She knows he had slob-like tendencies, but he still doesn't want her to _see_ it. She's not the only one allowed to change.

When the kids are buckled into his truck, he wants to hug Quinn, just to be close to her again. He wants to do or say _something_. But the moment passes when it becomes painfully obvious that it will only confuse the pair of eyes belonging to their daughter that are fixated on them. Quinn says a cordial goodbye, tells the kids that she loves them with a kiss on the forehead, and gets back in her SUV.

Same routine, different Friday.

* * *

She gets behind the wheel, turns off Disney Radio, and pops in Carole King's Greatest Hits.

She sighs all the way home. Seeing him always does this to her. Reminds her. Reminds her of what could have been - what could still be.

Fifteen minutes in the same proximity as him, and it makes her question the last two weeks she had spent convincing herself that she made the right decision.

Every other weekend he gets to be a dad again. And not just the one that they call every night to say "goodnight" to. He gets to be the hands-on man he always wished his dad had been, that he was when they were all still a family.

Beth talks about her day at school the entire drive home. Some little boy kept pulling her pigtails. When he tells her that is means the little boy likes her, he laughs when her face twists in disgust in his rearview mirror. He's dreaded the day she will discover boys since the moment Quinn told him "_it" was a" she"._

It's only been eight months since the split, and the kids had adjusted well. They were both good kids, but he secretly credited Quinn for that. She had them 80% of the time, anyway.

When they get back to his apartment, Beth immediately pops in her _The Little Mermaid_ DVD into the player and starts it while Puck begins preparing dinner. His cooking skills are limited (but improving), so he grills (beef) hot dogs, heats a package of frozen mixed vegetables, and bakes some poorly shaped crescent rolls.

They watch the movie and eat their dinner. Sometimes he does a line or two of Sebastian's to make Beth giggle. It's their traditional Friday night with Daddy.

Sure, 6 years ago he would have laughed at his future self, but now he wouldn't have it any other way.

Well, except for one thing, but that was out of his control.

* * *

Quinn wakes up Saturday morning and is almost deafened by the silence.

She habitually turns the TV on to Nick Jr. and starts watching it, before remembering she can watch whatever she wants, the kids aren't there.

So it's a day of watching Lifetime movies and mindless cleaning.

She replays everything that went wrong every other Saturday night while tossing and turning in her bed, alone.

Beth's unplanned conception resulting in her homelessness at sixteen, when she moved in (and fell in love) with Puck.

They eloped at eighteen.

They had Jonah when they were nineteen (also not planned).

They started growing apart when they were twenty. They weren't kids anymore. They hadn't been kids in a long time.

People (her mother being the ring leader) had assumed he had cheated on her. He hadn't, that she knew of. He had grown up and taken the whole family thing seriously the day Beth was born.

The reality is that it was all way too much, way too soon. Now she was almost 22, divorced, with two young kids.

This was not the way her life supposed to work out. Not at all.

* * *

He wakes up to Beth bouncing on his bed at seven am. He is more accustomed to this than the alarm clock that wakes him up when she isn't there.

He pours Beth a bowl of Honey Smacks and gives Jonah a bowl of dry Cheerios. He pours himself a bowl of Cheerios and watches as the little boy happily starts grabbing the circles with his small fingers. Years ago, a Saturday morning starting with Cheerios meant an epic Friday night.

The rest of the day is spent at his mother's house where the kids play with their Aunt Hannah, and his mom fusses over how big they're getting.

"How's Quinn?" his mother almost whispers.

Puck shrugs. He only talks to her when they're making arrangements, only their arrangements are pretty set to 5:30, at the library, every other Friday, so even then, it's not often or for very long, and usually by text.

"She's sad," Beth chimes in from the floor.

Puck looks over at the spitting image of Quinn, and doesn't know what to do. A part of him wants to smile at the fact that she hasn't moved on, but the other part just wants her to be happy...and she's not, according to a very candid six year-old. He wonders if Beth reveals this much about his emotional state to Quinn. If the little girl picks up on Quinn's well-guarded emotions, there's no telling what kind of reading she's getting from him.

He grabs his guitar from the corner of the living room and offers to play whatever song Beth wants. He's thankful that kids are easily distracted.

* * *

It's Sunday morning, and Quinn breathes in the last few hours of the unwanted peace and quiet that has plagued her for the last 43 and a half hours.

She's managed to get some much needed cleaning done, even though the two children are going to have their toys spread all over the floor again. She tells herself that it kept her busy.

Sometimes she wishes she had more friends, to fill the void every other weekend brings. But she made that choice when she decided to get married. People her age don't have time for single mothers that can only go out once every two weeks and none in between. She gets it.

Her mother keeps trying to sign her up for dating services, but she always manages to shrug her off with excuses of her schedule one way or another. The truth being that she's not even sure she wants to move on. The majority of her adult life had been invested into her relationship with Puck and raising their children. She wasn't exactly sure what the appropriate grieving period was, but she felt like she wasn't past it yet. The wound was re-opened every time she saw him.

She relieves her blonde locks from the headband and showers. When she takes a few minutes longer to get ready, she tries to reason in her head that it is because her mother always said you should look presentable in public. She'd stopped listening to her mother around the time she found out she was pregnant.

* * *

Sunday used to be his favorite day of the week, before he was a divorced, single dad. Sure, Quinn made him go to church (and smacked him when he fell asleep), but there was an overall general relaxation of the fact that it was the last day before going back to the weekly grind. Of course, he also loved football or NASCAR, or whatever other sport was in season. He especially loved when Beth, or sometimes even Quinn, asked questions about whatever sport was on the television.

Now he hates Sundays.

It means packing up the little Spiderman and Disney Princess backpacks and watching his children pout as he tells them it is time to go meet Mommy.

He's usually not surprised by, but rarely prepared for, the things that come out of his six year-old's mouth. So when she asks if they will all ever be a family again, he bangs the back of his head on the coffee table, reaching for Jonah's Hotwheel.

"We're still a family," he explains, sitting on the couch, pulling the tiny blonde on to his lap. "We're just a...different kind of family now."

"Like Aunt Rachel's family?" She looks like her mother when Quinn is enquiring about speeding penalties during a NASCAR race - all wide eyes, curiosity and a lot of confusion. He can't help but smile at her.

"Kinda. Sometimes, grown-ups can love each other," he's stumbling over his words, "but not be able to live together." He checks her expression to see if he's said enough to satisfy her curiosity.

She thinks on it for a second, so he seizes the opportunity to change the subject.

"Are you two ready to go see Mommy?"

* * *

Puck and the kids are in their spot before she gets there, which never happens. He's always running late.

She doesn't have to use her practiced fake smile when she gets out of the driver's seat and spots her two children and their father stepping out to greet her.

Hugs and kisses are exchanged, and she watches Puck out of the corner of her eye, carefully loading their bags in to her car.

Beth rambles about her Nana while Quinn settles them in the back seat.

* * *

"So," Quinn sighs.

This is the part where she's usually bolting back into her car after an uneasy "bye". He's not used to her actually speaking to him. It's usually too awkward at this point. He knows very well that Quinn rarely does awkward, she's more in to avoidance.

"So," he responds, rocking on his heels. His right hand searches for his keys while his left searches for loose change to channel his nerves.

"Beth asked about our...situation," he blurts it out before he has time to talk himself out of it.

Quinn glances over her shoulder at their daughter in the vehicle, playing on her Leap Pad. "Yeah?"

"She wants to know when we will be a family again," he shrugs.

"Oh, God. What did you tell her?" He instantly recognizes that _what-did-you-fuck-up now_ tone.

He pulls his hands free from his pocket and holds them up defensively. "I handled it. I told her we're just a different kind of family now."

He watches her body relax. That must have been the right answer to Beth's question.

"I got this, babe." It's out before he can take it back. "I'm sorry. Habit." He can't help but reach for the back of the Mohawk that hasn't been there for years.

"It's okay. I've...mis - grown fond of it over the years."

He didn't expect any reaction that didn't involve her shooting daggers at him with her eyes . Wait, she almost said she missed it.

"We need to go," she says quickly.

He peeks around her to see if any little pairs of eyes are focused on them.

* * *

She can't believe she almost said that she missed that stupid term of endearment aloud.

Quinn's starting to walk back toward her car when his hand grabs her wrist. Before she knows what's happening, she's back in his familiar arms.

Every urge she has to punch him melt away when he whispers "I miss you" in her ear. She relaxes, and before she can really settle in to the hug, he's gone and walking back to his truck.

He knocks on Jonah's window and gives one last goofy face and a wave to the children in the back seat, and he's gone.

She sighs as she gets back behind the wheel.

The two week battle in her mind starts all over again.


End file.
